Day 1: Foodie Penang (Oct 2014)

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Saturday, 18th October 2014

The skies were rainy as my Jetstar flight made her second landing attempt at the Penang International Airport. It got me real nervous after failing on its first descend. Finally, at 5pm this afternoon, my flight landed safely at the Bayan Lepas Airport - signalling the start of my 8 days trip around Penang and Thailand.

Catching the RM 2.70 public bus from the airport to downtown Penang was straight forward enough for me. After about 50 minutes on the road, the driver dropped us at the KOMTAR bus interchange where I made my way to the hotel on foot. I was staying at the Tune Hotel along Jalan Burmah and it wasn't really fun walking under the rain while keeping a lookout on the signs that pointed me to my hotel.

I was meeting KW and HP for dinner at Gurney Drive this evening. They had arrived in Penang the day before and were scheduled to return home on Sunday afternoon. After linking up with them at Sunway Hotel, we took a somewhat hefty RM 18 taxi ride to Gurney Plaza where we had our dinner at the hawker centre opposite the mall.

We ordered a bit of everything in order to sample the best of Penang's local delights. Most of the foods including Char Kuay Teow and Prawn Mee did not disappoint even though we didn't really like the taste of the Assam Laksa. It was pouring all night when we were there and this worked to our favour as the weekend crowds stayed away on a rainy Saturday evening.

Later that evening, we continued on with our supper at New Lane Hawker Centre before heading back to our respective hotels for the night. It has been a while since I last travelled with KW and our meet-up in Penang was certainly a nice reunion.

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